If you’re interested in your family tree and have always heard stories about DAR or Mayflower Society eligibility, membership in a lineage society may seem like a great place to start researching your family’s history. The application process can be a wonderful introduction to genealogy research. However, there are some differences from other types of genealogy, especially “academic” genealogy.
- Different goals: Lineage application research is focused entirely on demonstrating the connection to the society’s qualifying ancestor. That means you’ll work to document births, deaths, and marriages; the connections between spouses; and the connections between parents and children. You may not get into historical context or family stories, details that can often make the outcome more interesting.
- Different weighting of sources: Lineage societies tend to value vital records – birth, death and marriage certificates – over everything else. Genealogists working in other niches tend to look more about the internal evidence of the source when evaluating its reliability. The idea of considering vital records as “more reliable” makes the review process easier for societies, but it may cause problems for submitters. Vital records aren’t always accurate!
- One fact, one document: Academic genealogy will use the term “reasonably exhaustive” when discussing the research process. That asks genealogists to look at any source that might reasonably answer the question, in hopes of determining if the responses are consistent and/or detecting any variation. Lineage research typically seeks one document to answer a question.
Lineage genealogy is gradually becoming closer to academic genealogy in terms of practice. Yet, the expenses involved in verifying an application – and the desire to limit the amount of time required – suggest these differences may continue for a long time to come.